Line #29 Headscratchers/Hugo


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3	* Most of the first act of the film is driven by Hugo's concern over his notebook, without which he can't complete the automaton, but we later see him rebuilding it just fine and the notebook goes unmentioned. What happened? Did Hugo just remember more of the instructions than he gave himself credit for?
4	** Hugo's father drew it. It's one of the few things he has left of him, and therefore has immense sentimental value, regardless of practical value.
5	** I had assumed working in the toy shop having access to all the clockwork pieces he could get his hands on is how he was able to complete it. As stated above, the notebook belonged to his father and being the only thing he had left of him he had probably read through that book in every free moment he had and had the book memorised.
6	** Also worth mentioning is that, in the book, Hugo does eventually get the notebook back; it turns out Papa Georges faked burning it.
7	** He was able to rebuild it through a combination of remembering parts from the notebook, working in a booth belonging to the man who happened to have built the automaton, and experience from when he'd helped his father in the clock store where he used to work.
8	* Did nobody notice that Hugo's uncle wasn't picking up his paycheques?
9	** In the book it says Hugo has been picking them up and they're sitting in a pile on a desk in the room where Hugo sleeps.
10	* Between the first and second time Hugo gets caught by the station inspector, he is walking with Chloe Moretz and takes her hat to disguise himself. How could the station inspector be soooo easily fooled by Hugo putting on a hat?
11	** The second time he catches Hugo, he doesn't remember him as the same child from the initial escape, so it's not surprising he didn't recognise him in the middle. It's suggested pretty strongly that the stationmaster makes a habit of catching young children, so he probably just doesn't make particular note of their faces any more. As the head of security at a central train station, he probably sees lots and lots of people.
12	** Traumatic brain injury?
13	** If I recall correctly, the inspector didn't see Hugo's face during the first chase scene -- it seems the dog did, for a brief second when he tracked Hugo down at the toy booth, but all Inspector Gustave would've seen after Hugo started running would be the back of his head.
14	* For that matter, how is what's basically a Mall Cop allowed a doberman and a freakin' ''bullwhip''?
15	** He's the chief of security at a government-run train station. That's a bit above mall cop.
16	** Trains stations are like airports. Security is important.
17	** In fact, back then, train stations pretty much ''were'' airports. Security is doubly important.
18	* Melies built the automaton before moving into film, then dismantled it to make his first camera and never repaired it. How, then, does the automaton draw a scene from one of his films that was made after the automaton was dismantled?
19	** Perhaps he based the scene from the film on the drawing?
20	** Common cause. It's mentioned that Georges was the first filmmaker to use the medium to recreate dreams. He may have had a dream in his early life about a spacecraft striking the man in the moon (probably after reading ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon'') and it stuck with him. He created an automaton capable of drawing that dream along with his signature. When he had the technical ability later, he recreated it as a film.
21	** I think he mentions using spare/leftover parts that weren't used for to build the automaton itself. If both the camera and automaton existed simultaneously then he could have "programmed" it to draw that scene?
22	** The ''idea'' for the scene could've existed well before the movie was made; that's how the creative process works. Just because it hadn't been put to film yet doesn't meant Melies couldn't have imagined it up at the time he built the automaton.
23	* At the end of the movie, Hugo is adopted by Papa Georges, so who would take care of the station's clocks now, since Hugo no longer does them?
24	** I think we can safely assume the station just hired someone else.
25	* What caused the fireball that killed Monsieur Cabret?
26	** Malfunction in the museum's wiring? JerkAss asronists? [[TheWoobie The universe just hates Hugo?]]
27	** The book had a very forgetful guard working at the museum (who was the reason Hugo's father got killed in the first place, as he'd locked him in the attic before the fire). Maybe he lit a candle or something, then walked away and forgot about it.
28	* Could someone explain to me the scene where Mama Jeanne starts to throw Hugo out in the film, after bringing up the automaton's key that Isabelle had? In the book, it was mentioned that Isabelle had taken the key without her knowing, only to have it stolen again by Hugo due to their falling out, hence why Jeanne was upset. In the film, though, Jeanne states that she ''gave'' the key to Isabelle, and then Isabelle willingly gave it to Hugo because their falling-out was cut. With these simple facts in mind, I don't see a reason why Jeanne would have a right to be upset - does she think Hugo stole the key from Isabelle? Or is she merely upset that Isabelle have the key to him?
29	** I always saw it as Mama Jeanne being upset because the key has led to a situation where she was worried that her husband would find out and his old wound would be opened again, and she wanted to spare him the pain of that.
30	** Judging by the way Isabelle hurriedly tries to explain, it seems her impression was that Jeanne thought Hugo had stolen the key from her. If not that, Jeanne might've just been upset that Isabelle had been involved in Hugo fixing the automaton, as it would mean she now knows more than Jeanne would like her to.
31	* The scene was really heartwarming, of course, but...when Hugo tells Isabelle that machines never have any spare parts, and are always built with exactly what they need... isn't that technically not true? It seems any machine would have at least one gizmo or widget you could take out without affecting anything.
32	** The first explanation I thought of for this line would be the lack of interchangeable parts. Interchangeable parts, or parts that can replace identical/similar parts that have been broken, was only established a century before, and Wikipedia only mentions its establishment in America. In this context, referring to an automaton, a lot of the machine's equipment would probably be custom made and hand crafted. furthermore, Hugo has grown up around clocks and automatons that (I'm guessing) are older than interchangeable parts. TL;DR, Hugo wouldn't think that something could be replaced because he's never had evidence otherwise.
33	** Hugo's point wasn't about whether a given part could be removed without noticeably affecting the machine. His point was that whoever made the machine had a reason for including that part with it, even if it's not obvious. It's not very economical, if nothing else, to design a machine with some needless spare part that does absolutely nothing in practice. A function not being obvious actually supports his point, that being that people can still have purposes in the world, even if they haven't realized them yet.
34	* Why didn't Hugo ask Isabelle to help him by winding the clocks, after he injured his hand?
35	** He's not used to relying on other people; he's been alone for a couple years and is out of the habit of trusting others.
36	** He and Isabelle had also just had a falling out at that point in the story, and it's not until a bit later that they make amends and actually become friends. On top of that, Isabelle is on crutches from the box of drawings falling on her foot. She's probably not in a condition to go gallivanting through the station's walls winding clocks, and definitely can't climb ladders to reach the higher ones, as Hugo is described doing in the book. Especially not more than once a day, when she’s presumably still in school, and isn’t supposed to be seeing Hugo in the first place.
37	* Why didn't Etienne meet Hugo and Isabelle at the theatre to tell them that he'd gotten fired?
38	** Maybe he was at the Academy for his next job interview? Or maybe he just forgot?
39	** It's possible the owner of the cinema would've been on watch for any signs of Etienne waiting for them nearby, trying to catch whatever children he had been sneaking in. Etienne might've reasoned that staying away would keep Isabelle and Hugo out of trouble, and that the two would just go home in the event that he didn't show up.
40	* Why did the police need to contact Inspector Gustave to ask whether Hugo's uncle had any relatives? Given they were presumably the same ones who contacted Claude when Hugo's father had died, shouldn't they already have known that Hugo was living with him?
41	** Claude probably didn't tell anyone he was taking Hugo in.
42	* Why does Hugo continue to think that the picture the automaton draws is a message from his father after it signs it with Isabelle's godfather's name? Wouldn't the proper assumption be that Papa Georges built the automaton?
43	** The automaton is all he has left of his dad, so he's desperately hoping that the message will be from his father too. Logical? Maybe not. Understandable for a 12-year-old boy with no family left? Probably.
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Context Headscratchers / Hugo